1. George Maxwell Bell was a Canadian newspaper publisher, race horse owner and philanthropist.
41 Facts About Max Bell
1. 2.
Max Bell was best known as the co-founder of FP Publications, Canada's largest newspaper syndicate in the 1960s.
3.
Max Bell built his newspaper empire after inheriting the Calgary Albertan, and its $500,000 debt, from his father in 1936.
4.
Max Bell repaid the debt by 1945 and proceeded to purchase papers across the country, including the Ottawa Journal and The Globe and Mail.
5.
Max Bell formed several companies in the late 1940s which came to be worth millions of dollars when sold.
6.
Max Bell was a long time owner of thoroughbred race horses.
7.
Max Bell partnered with Frank McMahon to form two stables that won races across Canada, the United States and Europe.
8.
Max Bell was a part owner of several race tracks, including Balmoral Park, of which he became the first Canadian president.
9.
Max Bell was the son of George Melrose Bell and Edna Mae Parkin and had one brother, Gordon and two sisters, Audrey and Olive.
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Max Bell's grandfather, George Alexander Bell, was a Canadian pioneer and Liberal minister in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan.
11.
Max Bell's father earned his fortune selling insurance and owned several newspapers and periodicals before losing much of his wealth investing in mining and oil.
12.
Max Bell earned a degree in commerce from Montreal's McGill University during the Great Depression while working for his father at the Calgary Albertan newspaper during his summers.
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Max Bell met and married his first wife, Suzanne Staples, during this time and in 1935 returned to Calgary.
14.
Max Bell returned to the Albertan, earning $35 per week as the classified advertising manager.
15.
Max Bell inherited the paper upon his father's death in 1936, however the Albertan was under the control of the Royal Bank of Canada against $500,000 in loans that the elder Max Bell had made.
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Additionally, Max Bell invested in an oil well near Turner Valley, Alberta.
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In 1946, Canadian oilman Frank McMahon and Max Bell started Alberta Distillers Limited in Calgary, Alberta.
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Max Bell convinced five friends in the oil and gas industry to form the Essex Company and put up $35,000 to operate the paper.
19.
Max Bell then convinced the Royal Bank to give him control, and in mid-1943, was made publisher of the Albertan.
20.
Almost immediately after repaying his partners, Max Bell convinced them to purchase the Edmonton Bulletin.
21.
However, Max Bell lacked the capital to support the paper which was burdened with labour strife and aging equipment.
22.
Max Bell made the decision to fold the paper in 1951.
23.
Max Bell found success trading in leases and drilling rights on crown land, prompting Bell to form several other oil companies in the years that followed.
24.
In 1951, Max Bell amalgamated his various companies into Calvan Consolidated Ltd.
25.
Max Bell sold Calvan to Petrofina in 1955 for $40 million and, while he continued to trade in oil and gas companies for several years, his focus returned to the newspaper business.
26.
Max Bell purchased the Victoria Times Colonist in 1959 for $750,000, and one year later built a plant to print both the Times and The Colonist, which he gained control of in 1953 for $1 million.
27.
In 1954, Max Bell acquired a controlling interest in the Lethbridge Herald.
28.
Max Bell had a habit of appearing unannounced at the offices of his papers, often to chat with the editors, though never told them what to print.
29.
Max Bell continued to acquire newspapers, joining with Victor Sifton, owner of the Winnipeg Free Press to purchase the Ottawa Journal in 1959.
30.
Max Bell purchased the Vancouver Sun in 1963, and Toronto's The Globe and Mail in 1965, making FP Publications Canada's largest newspaper syndicate.
31.
Max Bell invested in several ranches and was at least part-owner in three race tracks, including Balmoral Park, where he was the track's first Canadian president.
32.
Max Bell partnered with Frank McMahon to form Golden West Farms near Okotoks, Alberta, and the pair joined with Vance Longden and Wilder Ripley in 1952 to form Alberta Ranches, Ltd.
33.
Max Bell was inducted into the Canadian Horse Racing Hall of Fame in 1977.
34.
An ardent member of the Presbyterian Church, Max Bell was said to have read the Bible as often as his weekly horse racing forms.
35.
Max Bell neither drank nor smoked, and was a generous donor to his church.
36.
Max Bell enjoyed playing golf and badminton, and frequently sailed his yacht, Campana, throughout the area around Vancouver Island and used it to ferry politicians and businessmen to a special forum on Canadian-American relations which he organized in 1959.
37.
Max Bell was a supporter of organized sport at several levels and helped finance the Vancouver Canucks' entry into the National Hockey League.
38.
Max Bell was the original chairman of Hockey Canada when it was formed in 1968, as a separate entity from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association.
39.
Max Bell fell ill to a neurological illness in 1967 resulting in numerous surgeries over the following five years.
40.
Max Bell died on July 19,1972, at the Montreal Neurological Institute.
41.
Max Bell Foundation has funded charities in a variety of areas since its inception, and currently focuses its grants on health, environment, education, and democracy and civic engagement.